The aim of changing what constitutes a small company is to prevent
non qualifying companies from accessing Small Business Administration (SBA) loans.

Last year a proposal to define a small campany based on the number of employees was dropped after a storm of criticism because of the fluctuation in payroll.

One participant, William C. Joern, vice president of the International Center for Language Studies Inc. said "my company doesn't favor defining size by number of employees because the payroll fluctuates with the needs of government clients such as the Pentagon, State Department and FBI."

Other speakers expressed that small comanies with revenue less than $500,000 were not able to apply for and secure government comtracts.

Gary M. Jackson, the SBA's assistant administrator for size standards, said based on comments from participants it was difficult to set the a boundary that defines small business that qualify for government contracts.

As the US Federal Government ponders on how to define a small company what are your views? Should a small company be defined based on the number of employees? amount of turnover? net assets? or a combination of these, as exists in the UK?

As the US ponders over an appropriate difinition of a small company Jonathan Cohen, president and chief executive of 20/20 GeneSystems Inc., said the SBA should not change the as small companies that are financed with majority venture-capital are prevented from applying for Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grants.

"Changing the rules to let the venture capitalists in could do great harm to biotech industry as money would be diverted away smaller firms that don't have VC support.", Cohen said.